Ramirez: Media bias toward Obama a national scandal

posted at 10:01 am on September 11, 2012 by Ed Morrissey

Michael Ramirez usually lets his editorial cartoons do the speaking at Investors Business Daily, but today he takes pen to paper in an entirely different medium — a column — to vent his frustration over media bias. While the national media focus relentlessly on issues like Mitt Romney’s taxes and business deals from two decades ago, they pay little attention to mundane trivialities such as millions of Americans falling out of the workforce. Picking up on Jake Tapper’s observation that the media is failing the country on economics, Ramirez argues that the failing is deliberate narrative-building for the incumbent:

ABC’s Tapper criticized the media for not covering the economy more.

“A lot of people are hurting out there,” he said. “Unemployment is 8.3%. That doesn’t even take into account the underemployed.”

In recent polls, the most important issue to Americans continues to be the economy and jobs. What’s not being reported is that there are fewer people employed today than at the end of the last recession — the longest spell without net jobs growth since at least World War II.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, at the end of the recession 59.4% of Americans had jobs. That’s just 58.4% today. …

The media’s No. 1 job should be to cover the substantive issues of this campaign without regard to party affiliation or philosophical bias.

That it’s now acceptable for many in the media to flaunt their bias should be, to use Joe Biden’s words, “a big f-ing deal.” Sadly, it isn’t.

Ramirez starts off his column by noting the difference in national media reporting on spelling errors between Republicans and Democrats. Dan Quayle corrected a student’s spelling of “potato” from an erroneous flash card provided by the teacher, and the media turned Quayle into a national joke — although that wasn’t the only gaffe Quayle ever committed, either. But to be equally fair, Obama misspelling the name of a key swing state for a photograph has hardly been his only gaffe. Yet the media rushed to judgment in proclaiming the image a fake, only to be burned when multiple images showed Obama spelling O-I-H-O in an impromptu demonstration.

Some forget that this was the original point of my Obamateurisms series. The media loved to highlight every verbal miscue of George W. Bush. At Slate, Jacob Weisberg turned it into a book series, and even took a couple of potshots once Bush retired. That would be fine if the media treated all politicians equally, but by March 2009 it was already clear that the media would shade its eyes when it came to the same kind of missteps from Barack Obama. The OOTD series started off as a temporary protest to that media bias, but the flow of material has been so steady that it’s become a semi-permanent feature at Hot Air.

Those are small potatoes, though, if you’ll forgive the pun. The media has been slow to tell the full story of the jobs crisis ever since Tim Geithner and Joe Biden declared a “Recovery Summer” in 2010. With some exceptions, the media has not bothered to puncture the claim from Obama of having added 4.5 million jobs, nor putting the decline of the workforce at the front of their stories on jobs reports, or even mentioning the underlying dynamic of population growth that is so critical to understanding those statistics. This is the worst economic recovery since the Great Depression, made worse by this administration’s economic and regulatory policies. Had that happened under a Republican President, those conclusions would be front-page news every single day.

Ramirez takes one last shot at the national media today in his traditional, Pulitzer Prize-winning format:

Also, be sure to check out Ramirez’ terrific collection of his works: Everyone Has the Right to My Opinion, which covers the entire breadth of Ramirez’ career, and it gives fascinating look at political history. Read my review here, and watch my interviews with Ramirez here and here. And don’t forget to check out the entire Investors.com site, which has now incorporated all of the former IBD Editorials, while individual investors still exist.

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what is this shit about O-I-H-O? its good the media did not picked up this silly outrage.
in the photo its wrong, but from the perspective of the people that were in the line, it was right. all obama is guilty is of not remembering for the mirror effect.

This is why Texas A&M dropped J-School. They did not cotton to communists in their faculty.

DanMan on September 11, 2012 at 10:18 AM

Good for them. Other universities should do the same, but of course, that won’t happen.

They have exactly the same mindset and objectives of the now radicalized Democrat party.They’re the same people.
They are interchangable as you can see as they smoothly move between Dem power positions and media power positions.

MSM=Dem party
Dem party =MSM

(Now get ready for the laughable tautology from a lefty that the media is actually conservative because they are owned by corporations.)

Dr. Carlo Lombardi on September 11, 2012 at 11:08 AM

^^^This is it exactly. Breitbart is correct: the MSM is the enemy also.

Explain that “mirror effect” for us, will you. The camera sees what the eye sees.
But do explain how everybody should have been – or was (who knows?) – watching the preezy with a mirror….in order to see the word spelled right.

The media must be accepted for what it is . . . large left wing propaganda machines. Then it must be defeated through a well developed counter-propaganda effort by the GOP. The bottom line is they need to get their heads out of their backsides and get into the fight. Mealymouthed, weak excuses and whining just don’t cut it anymore.

This is insane. The fact that the media didn’t beat the GOP over the head with the fact that their convention theme was 100% based on a heavily edited speech should have removed any doubt of media bias. The fact that Romney and Ryan don’t get smashed over the head in every interview on the very, very easy question of “what are the specific loopholes you would close to make up the billions more in planned defense spending” should prove that there’s no media bias.

Don’t be sore losers. The big monies going to abandon Romney and dump its money into Senate races after the VP debate.

This is the same media that never vetted the rat-eared bastard, right? The same media that made up fake memos about GWB and completely ignored the fact that John Kerry is about as far away from war hero as you can get this side of treason, right? The same media who went on for days about the Romney vacation three decades ago but somehow never have gotten around to discuss Operation Fast and Furious, right?

There wasn’t ONE thing accurate in your post — (a) Obama’s own words, in context, is not “heavily edited;” (b) Romney is going to have all the money he needs — whatever the amount — bank it; (c) Obama had to cancel his “Charlotte Speedway Day” reducing the convention from 4 to 3 days because HE didn’t have the money, yet still ended the convention $15 million in the hole; and (d) Obama couldn’t fill Bank of America stadium.

Next you’re going to tell us about how Romney is going to quit & just give all his money to Obama (I can see you’re heading in that direction).

In the next cartoon, is that dog on an official West Wing White House plate perfectly seasoned and grilled to perfection?

Today Rush has been talking about something related to this–he calls it the “inevitability” of Obama’s re-election and how the libturds and slimestreamers are trying to convince us dumb righties that Romney hasn’t a chance bcuz the polls tell us so–you know, those polls they’re deliberately skewing in Obama’s favor. Rush was wondering, as I was too when I saw it, why was Obama campaigning around Rush country in Palm Beach County, FL? I know he claimed that if he wins that county he wins FL but he won the county 2-to-1 in 2008 as he did many neighboring counties in south Florida. Why’s he worried–afraid he honked off the rich Dooms who live there with his calls to overtax the wealthy? If the inevitability of Obama’s re-election exists, then why is he campaigning in places that are supposedly friendly to him? Why is he fundraiding so desperately?

Screw the skewed polls and just get out and vote and get out the vote wherever you can.

Explain that “mirror effect” for us, will you. The camera sees what the eye sees.

usually when you write, its from left to right, but if you are doing a stunt like this, you cannot write from left to right, you have to reverse it. from obama perspective, to his left was the “O” and he was the second letter from the left, the “H”. got it?

But do explain how everybody should have been – or was (who knows?) – watching the preezy with a mirror….in order to see the word spelled right.

Solaratov on September 11, 2012 at 11:50 AM

as explained above, the issue is not if the prez and his entourage did not know how to spell ohio! all of them forgot to reverse the writing. but this is a minor mistake that is silly to pick upon like you did!

I just don’t see a win here for Jugears, no matter how this plays out. What outcome can it appear that he will influence and generate a win?

AZfederalist on September 11, 2012 at 11:11 AM

Maybe he flies to Chicago to “negotiate” a compromise. Barry pretends he’s going to knock heads together if the dispute isn’t settled post-haste. (I read an article in a Chicago paper earlier today that reported that the money issue has already been resolved. The union has “generously” agreed to accept the 16% pay raise. The only issue still in play is the teacher performance evaluation.)

Barry gets to posture that he saved the day and got the teachers back to work — for the children! The union gets the deal it has probably already (secretly) agreed to on the performance evaluations, and Barry gets to pretend he stood up to the union.

Barry gets to posture that he saved the day and got the teachers back to work — for the children! The union gets the deal it has probably already (secretly) agreed to on the performance evaluations, and Barry gets to pretend he stood up to the union.

AZCoyote on September 11, 2012 at 1:29 PM

Not being contentious, but still not seeing it. If the agreement with the union, even if prearranged, accepts the performance evaluations, Obama gets cred with the common folk for “holding teachers accountable”, but loses union cred and support. If the agreement deep-sixes the evaluations, then he keeps his union cred and support, but can be portrayed as caving to the unions and accepting the fact that 80% of Chicago students are failing, but it’s not right to make teachers accountable. This just looks like lose-lose for Jugears — not that he’s ever “acted stupidly” before or anything like that, so anything is possible. If he were wise, he’d just whistle past this trainwreck and let Rahm and company deal with it on their own.

usually when you write, its from left to right, but if you are doing a stunt like this, you cannot write from left to right, you have to reverse it. from obama perspective, to his left was the “O” and he was the second letter from the left, the “H”.

nathor on September 11, 2012 at 1:21 PM

Meh, that’s the level of his intellect… sooo puerile, what the heck was he thinking anyways, is he 5 or what….

Ramirez is spot on and I love his cartoons. The media is changing before our eyes and I for one am glad of it. I will state that in my lifetime (I’m 51) the media has always been left. It started with the Nixon/Kennedy debates and hasn’t been centrist since that time. From Walter Cronkite declaring the Viet Nam war lost when it wasn’t to the present day the media have been lap-dogs for the left. It’s out in the open now and there is no putting that toothpaste back in the tube. Not only does the MSM openly embrace the left but they are proud of that fact. You cannot reason with such people, they can only be defeated. That has already begun with the blogosphere and websites such as Hot Air, American Thinker, Breitbart’s Big Sites, Drudge etc…

Remember folks the MSM no longer control the narriative, they no longer get to disseminate the news. Their networks, newspapers, magazines are all facing financial disaster.

This is the free market at it’s best and it’s why we must fight to keep it.

I’m really into hiphop music. Not the stuff you guys hear on the radio or see on videos. Real hiphop music. Music that speaks on uplifting our communitys, political happenings, social injustices, etc.

I used to always wonder why MTV/BET wouldnt play a positive song about finishing school and getting married but would play a song about going to the club and getting drunk. I complained for years and then I took an actual media and society class in college and I realized the media only gives us what WE want to hear/see.

At the end of the day the media is in business to make a profit. Theyre going to go where ever the largest crowd is, when I finally realized if more people wanted to hear concious music then the radio stations would play it, I realized its not the media’s fault. It’s societys. They give us what drives they’re ratings.

I think its the same with the media and Obama. I hear about how bad the economy is doing on sites like this all the time but its hard for me to translate that to real life. When I go to the malls, they’re packed, I went to vegas last weekend and people were spending 2,000.00 dollars on VIP tables, every time Jordan releases a new shoe its lines around the corner. There’s a new iPhone coming out soon, who out there DOESNT think theyre going to be millions of people camping out overnight for these phones?

I dont dispute some people are hurting but thats not what people want to hear about, so thats not the story that the media is pushing. I constantly hear about our unemployment being at 8 + % but I dont know not one person who doesnt have a job. I see now hiring signs all the time. How can I match my reality with this “The sky is falling” mentalitiy that it seems some want us to believe? I mean I really dont believe all the heads of all the news agencies set down and said “Hey, Lets go easy on Obama” I believe theyre giving their audience what they want.

This is insane. The fact that the media didn’t beat the GOP over the head with the fact that their convention theme was 100% based on a heavily edited speech should have removed any doubt of media bias. The fact that Romney and Ryan don’t get smashed over the head in every interview on the very, very easy question of “what are the specific loopholes you would close to make up the billions more in planned defense spending” should prove that there’s no media bias.

Don’t be sore losers. The big monies going to abandon Romney and dump its money into Senate races after the VP debate.

Most people I know have lost jobs, and had hours severely scaled back.Independent contractors are finding that venues and companies that would use their services are severely cutting back or closing available jobs.
.
But you obviously did a nice elaborate,contorted, see no evil “Twister” -like spin to protect your jug-eared messiah’s destruction of the economy.
.
Jim Jones would have loved you.

what is this shit about O-I-H-O? its good the media did not picked up this silly outrage. in the photo its wrong, but from the perspective of the people that were in the line, it was right. all obama is guilty is of not remembering for the mirror effect.

there must be better stories than this!

nathor on September 11, 2012 at 10:20 AM

Whatever. Drunk-a$$ football fans can figure out the “perspective” when they paint letters on their stomachs to form words for the cameras but the “smartest president evah” can’t do it? Lame

FACT: Someone I care about deeply is living on a thread at his job. His company has halved its workforce; they’ve frozen the pension plans, made the employees work 37.5 hours per week instead of 40, quit matching their 401ks, forced employees to take off one week per year unpaid, had five separate layoffs since 2009 and are still hemorraging employees. Whoever leaves they don’t replace. They pulled everyone into a meeting recently and told them that there are so few employees left that only one person can be off on vacation leave at a time. Which means there is not enough vacation time to go around. His paycheck is a joke–he hasn’t had a raise in years. All of this has occurred since the Rock Star took office.

So don’t tell *me* everything’s hunky-dory. Besides, I’ll bet you most of those folks running around spending money are doing it on credit. I seriously doubt they can afford the spending they’re doing in this economy.

Politricks, remember that your media teachers are liberal also, that is why they say “we just give people want they want”.

Secondly, viewership is way down for the major networks, Obama 2016 is doing much better than expected at the box office and a conservative book is on the best seller list. Yet, the liberal viewpoint is still being pushed, despite the obvious decline in audience.